City’s water treatment plant construction nears completion

Tonganoxie's new $4.2 million wastewater treatment facility still is being fine-tuned, but city officials hope to soon set a date for an open house.

Kent Heskett, the city's utilities superintendent, said Monday that the project was "pretty much finished."

"There's just a couple of small things we're working out," Heskett said. "Still a few bugs. With any project there's some bugs you're going to have to work out. We expect that."

Mayor Dave Taylor said he plans to discuss an open-house date at Monday's city council meeting.

Taylor said City Administrator Mike Yanez is looking into adding more landscaping to the site, along with applying asphalt to more of the road leading to the plant.

"You know, when it rains, it gets pretty muddy," Taylor said.

The facility was built next to the existing plant at 1536 E. Fourth St. The facility will process up to 750,000 gallons of waste per day. The existing plant, built in 1978, had a capacity of 400,000 gallons per day.

The city has a one-year warranty period, which started in the spring. Heskett said it may take the full year to get the kinks worked out, but wasn't concerned about the potential timeline.

"They're not major, major deals," Heskett said.

The plant itself, Taylor said, "looks pretty nice."

And Taylor was quick to compliment the company in charge of the project -- BRB Construction of Topeka.

"They did a real good job," Taylor said. "And I've been in construction all my life. These guys were top-notch.

"I believe the people of Tonganoxie got their money's worth out of this company."